


astray

by bluecarrot



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Adultery, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hamburr, Porn with Feelings, Post-Reynolds Pamphlet, Pre-Reynolds Pamphlet, Smut, The Reynolds Pamphlet, burrliza, but not much of it, elizurr, i can't decide on a ship name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:32:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: in which we discuss the events leading to the relationship between Aaron Burr and Elizabeth (Schuyler) Hamilton -- the situation of the liaison itself, in its generalities and particulars -- and the dissolution thereof.(in three parts.)(four parts. FOUR.)   "You're beautiful like this," he tells her. "Laughing. Unafraid.""You misjudge my character," and gently she withdraws her hand -- but does not move away. "I am afraid of everything."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holograms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/gifts).



> written 11/2016.  
> for peaches, that sinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what even is consistency, or historical timelines, or Miranda's timeline? WHO KNOWS.

Some things, Burr believes, are sacred: honor, for one. Relationships. He loves his wife; he loves his baby daughter and his stepchildren too, with a straightforward devotion, baffling in its purity: a truly distracting amount of emotion that makes politics even less appealing.

He complains as much to Theodosia. 

She laughs at him.  "I would ask why you do it, but I know what you'd say."

"Tell me then," he says. "Since you know so much."

She imitates his deeper voice: "'What good is a man if he can't make a change in the world?' But you do," she says, shutting her eyes. "You make a difference to us. Isn't this enough?"

Burr buries his face in her hair.  She is enough.

 

In the morning her face is grey with tiredness and Burr knows she will not get out of bed today -- but she smiles at him, she ties his cravat properly, she kisses him. "My Aaron." 

His Theo.  His wife, dying. And she's right. She's always right. He doesn't care much about politics, not really. Not in the way Hamilton cares about them. It's a job, not a calling. Personal relationships are another issue entirely.

 

 _Of course_ when Burr sets up a practice, Hamilton works next door. He comes over late at night to argue through cases, too, and eventually Burr gets used to feeling a headache between his eyebrows. 

He still doesn't visit the family.

"It's rude," says Theodosia, who is making faces at young Theo and bouncing her on a knee. "You need to be polite."

"A lawyer of the domestic sphere," mocks Burr. "Give her over, will you? I don't get enough time with the little ones." He takes the baby into his lap and promptly swears. "She's wet! You could have warned me."

"You deserve it," says his wife. "Invite them here to supper, Aaron. What is _wrong_ with you?"

So he does.

  

"More tea?" says Theodosia; she presses a hand to her stomach where it pains her. And Burr can't look at his wife; he doesn't want to see that pinch to her mouth where she's trying to bite down on hurting.

He studies Hamilton's wife instead. Elizabeth.  _Eliza._

She is small and neat and plain, looking plainer and smaller and neater next to Alexander's self-conscious finery; she is mild and self-contained.

Meanwhile Alexander is talking on thirteen topics at once, from all angles, gesturing.

Burr watches from behind his tea cup. He thinks: _How can she bear him?_

 

They win the _Weeks_ case -- using some courtroom theatrics Burr is not entirely proud of. Hamilton drags him to a bar afterwards and makes toast after toast -- to the justice system! to the judge! to their combined efforts bringing righteousness! He talks too much, as always, and Burr lets him talk. (There is something here that he cannot suss out, much as he tries.)

Afterwards Burr half-carries Alexander back home.

Eliza greets them, grimly. "Is he all right?"

"Perfectly fine," says Burr. (Hamilton is in fact giggling, which he assumes is a good sign.)

She hesitates. "Can you take him -- I hate to ask --"

"Upstairs? Of course."

"The bedrooms?" says Alex. "Why, Burr. I never knew."

Eliza says "Third to the left," and he follows her inside, expecting she will take hold of Alex now -- but she only moves aside the curtains to the bed, showing it off in a way that's unexpectedly -- well. It's unexpected.

He helps the still-giggling Alexander sit on the edge and tugs off his boots, making a face at the mixed scent of sweat and feet and alcohol, and drags up his feet to put them fully on the bed --  _Hamilton's_  bed -- his and Eliza's. Their marital bed.

Well. What of it? "Stop that noise," he tells Hamilton, wishing he could just gag the man. But Eliza is bending over her husband, pushing back hair away behind his ears, trying to hide her worry.

"Get him some water," says Burr. "He'll be fine."

She straightens; her is hand still on Alex, resting again his skin. "I'm so thankful for your help."

Burr says something polite and distant and bows briefly from the waist and finds his own way to the door. 

Outside, the air is cool against his cheeks, and Burr doesn't think about why he might be warm.

 

Time passes. The children grow older; his wife encourages him to continue in politics, presses him on when he would prefer to stop. "Go to the Senate," she tells him. "Press for the suffragette vote." Burr does, to no affect. He petitions for an end to slavery and loses that, too. He introduces the vote again and loses again.

She dies. Burr is not there. Her final letter to him is lost in the mails, gone astray.

He writes his daughter instead, trying to find a reason to keep living in her, having nothing else now. _Practice your Latin; practice your piano; practice your French. Keep your shoulders relaxed and low; smile in company; they will not understand you, my girl, and you must accept that now, while you are young enough to be forgiven._ He does not write  _I love you I love you I love you_.

 

The Hamiltons visit the Burrs; it is supremely awkward. Alexander keeps introducing topics and dropping them mid-sentence, looking abashed: _He mustn't speak of commonplace things when Burr is grieving!_

Clearly (thinks Burr) Alexander himself is a stranger to grief -- or he would know that the purpose of a condolence call is to give the bereaved something to think about aside from themselves. A few minutes away from the whirling quagmire of his own mind. _Let's talk about work,_ he wants to say, but on the other hand watching Alexander squirm and embarrass himself is as much as diversion as he could ask for, really.

It's so bad that Burr actually starts to laugh aloud -- and Eliza cuts herself off in the middle of a polite inquiry after young Theo to stare at him, appalled -- and what else can Burr do but apologize? He excuses himself and flees to the kitchen and covers his face, shaking with laughter.

\-- and then he's just shaking. He slides down the wall, extending a hand to catch himself on nothing, reaching out for nothing, finding nothing to support him as he cries.

 

Life, as they say, does go on. His grief recedes from the present far enough that he is able to return to work and take a part in his world again, though he is largely going though the motions, acting on an idea of what Theodosia would have wanted, what she would have told him to do. He lays in bed and looks up at the darkened ceiling and thinks of her, strokes off thinking of her, stands up and argues with his fellow Senators, thinking of her.

 

\-- So it's with a certain amount of personal distaste that he finds himself thinking of Elizabeth Hamilton while visiting a prostitute. (The Hamiltons visited for supper the night before; Alexander made a face every time he thought Burr wouldn't see, and it's _completely_ annoying, but Elizabeth was charming and self-effacing, drawing out the conversation and the men with a subtle, generous grace.)

_Eliza_  he thinks, dipping his head and tasting the whore. No, no -- she isn't _Eliza --_  she is _Hamilton's wife_. Some things are sacrosanct. If Alexander had ever so much as given a hint that he _realized_ Theodosia was a woman, Burr would have shot him on the spot. Surely it's the least he can do, to extend the same courtesy.

That _least courtesy_ is beyond him, it seems.  He drives the thought of her out of his mind and focuses on the body beneath him -- she's sweet and funny, they've fucked before and she seems glad enough to see him. Burr finds it easy to believe he's a relief from her other customers. 

But: he can't help but notice that her hair is dark (not dark enough) and her breasts are small and full, not sucked soft and loose by children's mouths, and her belly -- and what's below it -- h e spends a while there and she arches beneath him and he smiles at her. "Good?"

"Jesus," she says.

"Burr," he says, amused, but she doesn't get it.

He thinks: _Eliza would have laughed._

 

Burr wants to make her laugh.  That's more troubling than any morning half-mast. She is _Hamilton's wife_ , she is his partner's _wife_ , and she's never regarded him with anything but politeness.

Meanwhile: he snips at Hamilton when they win a case. Alex looks briefly hurt, confused, annoyed -- then he shrugs.

Meanwhile, Hamilton brings out an "anonymous" notice in the paper, thoroughly trouncing Burr's favorite political view. The damnable thing is how reasonable it sounds to those uneducated in the issue.  Burr throws the paper at his friend, swearing, and Hamilton has the gall to pretend a moment he isn't the author -- and then his pride gets the better of him, and he's standing up and arguing.

At noon they go out for drinks and lunch and fight some more. They'll never agree, Burr knows it, and the thought comes with some regret -- but at least Alexander cares. He shows his hand a lot less these days but he doesn't bother to fight if he doesn't _care_. In that way at least they are painfully alike -- though Hamilton might not see it.

 

He wonders if Eliza sees it; h e wonders what she would do if she knew. One time h e smiles at her when she hands him over a cup of tea, and maybe his eyes speak more than he intended to communicate because she jerks a little and the tea sloshes and she has to turn away to clean up (conveniently hiding her expression).

He's more careful after that, and so is she.

Her caution is in itself a tell. 

He notices.

She is still Hamilton's wife. He still does nothing, says nothing, tries to give nothing away.

 

Time passes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more or less historically accurate, what there is of it.  
> Theodosia did press her husband to keep on with politics; she died while he was away (!); he repeatedly introduced bills to grant women the vote (although it didn't do much) and he was instrumental in ending slavery in New York state.  
> Theodosia had lots of children from her first husband and Burr adored them too  
> Burr did tell his daughter all that advice -- she needed to stop cringing in company, she needed to act normal, she needed to accept that she was always going to be the odd one out. He did not come out and write "you are too similar to me for people to like you," but he might as well have.
> 
> Hamilton was often drunk and a perpetual pain in the ass and I love him anyway, hah


	2. Chapter 2

The spring of 1796 is warm; the snow melts early into unattractive puddles and slush and plain old mud, clinging to boots and the hems of long dresses, dragging at wagon-wheels during the day, freezing at night into deep ruts. All sorts of things come out as the rain falls and the city clears of debris -- half-rotted mittens and frozen piles of horseshit,for example.

Burr is picking his way around some of these unattractive offerings when he catches a familiar name called out by the news-boy. "All about Secretary Hamilton's secret affair --" So he pays the boy and finds a dry patch of street-corner and skims through the so-called _pamphlet_ once, twice, three times. It's terrible, it really is; Hamilton's truly fucked up this time. And Burr is terrible too, 'cause he can't stop laughing. The whole thing is so completely _Alexander_. Whatever can he have been thinking?

They haven't really spoken in months, and it's longer than that since he visited, but still he finds himself turning down Wall Street, standing at the tall grey door, knocking and requesting admittance -- and (somewhat to his surprise) receiving it.

 

Eliza is stern, Burr self-effacing.

"I am not accepting visitors," she almost snaps before she corrects herself, corrects her tone. "I know you're here to talk. It's very kind, I'm sure, but I don't need to talk."

He shrugs. "So we won't talk." He moves past her to the parlor where they've been so often.

"Not in there."

"What? I mean, I beg pardon?"

"That room looks unto the street. Go on to the rear parlor."

She leads.

Burr follows. Sits. Waits for her to order tea.

She does not.

The clock ticks.

He shifts on the slippery horse-hair chair. "Where is Alexander?"

"In his study." Her chin shifts, tenses. "Alone. He has been a great deal alone as of late."

"I am so sorry for the affect of this scandal on your family," he tells her, meaning it.

"Do all -- do all men do this? Did _you_ do this sort of thing before your wife passed?" Desperation leaks through her broken edges; he can see it, and the sight is so familiar that he can barely bear to look at it.

He says: "Alexander cares very deeply for you, I do know that. And for all your family."

"It does not much affect his actions. Of what use is that sort of affection?"

"He sees politics and affection as parallel, not intersecting." Another failure. He tries again.  "If he was more willing to risk your relationship than his career, it is only because he thought this the stronger." He hopes it is true and fears it is not. When has he ever known Hamilton? Loved him -- yes -- hated him -- often -- but _understanding_ they've never quite reached.

In ways he feels more akin to Eliza, who has not yet cast a tear, who is only now raising the cup to her mouth to hide a traitorous twitch of emotion.

"I'm sorry," he tells her again; when she doesn't reply, he rises to go.

"Wait," she says.

 

Afterwards they can never agree on how it happened, like memory itself is a cloud of smoke -- like tension once released obliterates memory in its turn. He remembers the feeling of her mouth, sugar-sweetened and rough where she's chewed at it; he remembers how long they stood there simply kissing, hungry for it, just for that, in a way he hadn't been since he was a young man courting Theodosia -- knowing it couldn't go anywhere, knowing she was married, knowing he didn't give a damn for all the things he'd worked for and planned for, if he could only have her.

Maybe he has a knack for ruining his own life; maybe he is more akin to Hamilton than he thought.

Eliza shivers against him and pushed him away -- and Burr feels the strain of his own desire against her leg and he sees her glance down at it and smile.

He thinks:  _I could ruin her_. Oh he could take down both her and Alexander both, and he could _take_ her too -- but he won't, he _won't_ \--

Eliza wipes at her mouth. "Am I presentable?"

"You are perfectly proper."  _You are delicious._

"Thank you," she says. And what the bloody hell does  _that_ mean?

 

Burr is obsessed with what she meant; he wonders at it and chews at it and can no longer _bear_ not knowing. He deliberates over a letter and actually writes a first few lines before shredding it and going back to pacing the room, instead. 

 _Did you ever cheat on your wife?_  Elizabeth Hamilton had asked him. No, he did not -- although she gave him _permission_ , didn't she? During the last stages of protracted illness, when there was nothing to do but wait and plead with doctors, they discussed it. (Her hands were weak and tired by then; she couldn't even stroke him off, and she'd wept. "I can't do it for you. I can't do _anything_. I'm a failure as a wife."

"I'm not _asking_ you," he said, stung. "And how could you ever be a failure?"

Her eyes were so dark, the pupils perfect moons -- the opium. "You should go somewhere else. There are other women --"

"No," he said, and when she kept staring at him he said it again: " _No._ I love you _. I love you._ "

"That's not -- _Aaron_ \--"

He put his face in her nightdress and breathed in her smell -- different now, the smell of long patience against pain, but still good and dear and known. After a moment her hand drifted to the back of his head and rested there, tired out from the brief distance.

"We'll talk about this again," she told him, with something of the familiar amusement in her voice at his intractability. "Think about it.")

 

He thinks about it now. How one makes concessions to reality; how he uses fantasy to wallpaper the ugliness of life. It is cowardly. One should face one’s problems. One should simply pull on one’s boots and knock firmly on the door, and smile at the maid who answers and charm your way into the study and interrupt Eliza at her sewing and when she stands up, say --

“Um. Good morning.”

“It’s past noon,” says Eliza, and moves past him to shut the door.

 

Expectations (he firmly believes) lead to disappointment. You never know what might happen. You have to be ready to react. But he finds himself hesitating. “I thought we might continue our conversation of last Tuesday. That is -- unless -- unless --”

“Unless,” she says. “ _Unless_ a thousand things. My husband and my children and propriety and my promises before God: is that your  _unless_ , Mr Burr?”

None of that matters to him. “The only thing that signifies is your own desire to continue, Mrs Hamilton.”

Eliza moves to the window, turning her back to him and looking out. “I have argued with myself these last few days. And do you know what conclusions I’ve come to?”

Burr cannot imagine.

“None. Nothing at all. I turn the matter over in my mind like a stone and know nothing about it at all for certain except that it is heavy, and may easily hurt someone.”

He is being politely and elegantly denied. He tries to convince the stone in his own stomach of this fact to no avail.

“I have already been hurt,” she says.

“When Alexander,” she says, and stops herself.

“I knew he was unfaithful,” she says, and stops that one too.

“You do not have to tell me," says Burr.

“I _want_ to tell you.”

“You don’t.” He clears his throat. She’s stepped close to him. Too close. “You don’t need to justify it to me. Or to yourself. A simple _no, thank you_ will suffice.”

And Eliza smiles at him -- a real smile -- and something in his chest clenches, and he is grateful she is enying him because this really would be a mistake -- "But the answer is _yes, please,_ ” she says.

How can he say no to that? And -- yes, all right, he wondered how she would feel, all fine bones and firm mouth, and he was mostly right and he is interested to find out where else his imagination might have gone astray --

"Aaron," she says. "Please."

"Don't call me Aaron." ( _Theo_ , he thinks, and more vaguely: _Goddammit, Alexander!_ because of course this is all his fault.)

"Mister Burr?"

"Jesus, no! Just _Burr_."

"That's a terribly presumptive form of address," she whispers back, and he muffles his snort of laughter in her shoulder, holding her still when she squirms -- and now they are seated on the chaise again, giggling helplessly.  Eliza has her hand in his.

"You're beautiful like this," he tells her. "Laughing. Unafraid."

"You misjudge my character," and gently she withdraws her hand -- but does not move.

"I don't think so." He kisses her again and her mouth opens and her eyes drift shut,  and

 

and it's over far too quickly: Burr is embarrassed.

 

Afterwards he buttons up himself and then helps her settle down her skirts, trying not to look in her face, not flinching when she pushes away his hands and does it herself. "Eliza --"

"Shush your mouth," she says, like he's a child.

He laughs aloud again, it's such a surprise to be treated that way, and there's something charming about it -- she looks up at him with a frown and then she's laughing too, and when he leans forward to kiss her again she lets him, and then, well, it's too soon for Burr to try again just yet but there are other things to do --

 

That night Burr takes supper alone in his office and reads the afternoon news.

He ignores how his hands are shaking.

This is not like him. He is not _Hamilton_ , with his long list of affairs -- they all know the Reynolds situation was only one of many -- and he suspects that Alexander has dallied with men too. _Not that I am interested on a personal level_ , he thinks -- but there is one night early on that Burr cannot bear to forget or to remember (they were drunk together and new to each other and his fingers gripping Alex's wrist for steadiness slipped into the sleeve of his coat, seeking warmth for his numbed skin, seeking and seeking -- and he rubbed his thumb across the hot pulse and Alexander made a soft dear noise and said "Oh, but not here" and a stiff-limbed Aaron followed him to the servant's door of his house and was leaning in to take what he wanted, _fuck_ what would happen in the morning, _fuck_ responsibility and the dull strain of his heart in his chest, he _wanted_ this and Alex was smiling and relaxed and sober enough to pretend he was more drunk than he was -- and the door unlatched and a servant came out and Burr caught the quick flash of shame across Alexander's face. So. "Hamilton," he said. "You are safely home -- so good night." And "don't leave," said Alex, and Burr pretended he hadn't heard.)

He sleeps heavily and wakes mid-night and jerks off and lays restless, listening to the heavy chimes of the clock in the square; it's cold again tonight, and the tones come through clear and bright.  _Eliza_.

He can't do it again. He shouldn't. He shouldn't _want_ to do it. But he remembers the quick dark flush over her cheeks, the smell of different places on her body, the way she laughed in her throat --

Goddammit.  

So he visits. "Is Hamilton --"

"Gone away to a meeting," and does he misread the quirk at her mouth?

They are quiet together. Burr rests the tea-cup on his knee and looks anywhere but between her legs. "Did that make up for it?" he asks, meaning: for Hamilton's misdeeds. For Maria Reynolds. For the months and years he spent lying to her; the nights she's slept alone and aching and angry.

"Stop talking, Mr. Burr," she says, and it's such a curious parallel to what he's always said to Hamilton that he lifts up his head and stares at her --

\-- and obeys

\-- until he's deep inside her, and then he is babbling, he can't help it, he keeps thinking _This has to end soon_ , but now his head is between her thighs and he is a hypocrite, he deserves to be eviscerated, what is _wrong_ with him? But she's noisy, she's gasping short breaths and actually swearing aloud and he laughs at her shifting away to stifle it into the skin above her knee.

Eliza scolds him; she swats his head. "Don't you goddamn well  _stop,_ Aaron Burr." 

So he moves back and starts again,

and

 

"Are all men like this afterwards?"

"Like what?" He nuzzles into her neck.

"Wanting to talk. Can't you just ... be quiet?"

"You're the only one who ever tells me to talk less," he tells her, amused. "And how would you know? From your great sample size of two." But doesn't she have a lovely space just above her collarbone, and oh how it makes her breath catch and shift ...

"Mm. _Women_ talk, you know."

"You share -- stories? About your husbands?" He can't imagine it. Not from Eliza, anyway.

"Why do you men think we have nothing in our brains but ribbons and recipes and household worries? It's as though you really do think with what's between your legs."

Burr huffs. "Not _all_ men."

"Every last one of you."

"Are _all women_  so argumentative?" he says, teasing her with words and mouth, and she draws up a shawl to cover them both.

 

They talk, now. It seems endless -- what she will tell him. What he wants to know. "If it weren't for the children," she says, referring as she often does to leaving Hamilton, to obtaining a divorce, perhaps marrying again (neither one alludes to that other possibility: their legal union.) "I couldn't take away their father." (Burr nods, he doesn't need her to explain, but Eliza needs it.) "You love your daughter?"

"More than life. She's my heart."

It doesn't make sense spoken out loud, but Eliza nods. "Yes. And so, imagine having eight. Each one is your heart, walking around on earth."

"We had four born to us. Little Theo was the only one who ..."

"I'm sorry."

"... and we raised the children my wife bore to her first husband; they're more or less grown now, but they were mine too. She only had _five_ ," he tells her, sternly. "You have more than done your duty to our young nation."

"That's why you're so comfortable with them? But Alex never ..."

Burr lets the sound of her voice slide over him. He wishes they were somewhere off together. He would like to see her in the sunlight, he would like to see her in a bath. He would like to stop paying whores for relief when he sees her pass by on the street and cannot get at her, can only nod and hurry off to attend to the aching tautness between his legs.

 _Goddamn_ this nonsense anyway! He should just tell Hamilton -- he should --

But anything he does would hurt Eliza, too.

So he doesn't do anything.

 

And her visits (never very frequent) dwindle down and entirely stop.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- young boys selling papers on the streetcorner wasn't a Thing in the 18th c America, but if you're here for Elizurr, you probably don't care about the historical accuracy of newsies
> 
> \- i have no clue if Burr thought the Reynolds Pamphlet was funny but also I AM SURE THAT HE DID and i love to think about him giggling uncontrollably about how freaking ridiculous Alex was with his dander up
> 
> \- nothing to see here, just reminding you that Aaron Burr, the reticent man who wouldn't admit to knowing where France was, had an adulterous affair with the wife of an enemy solider during a freaking war
> 
> \- he really did love kids, oh god his journals are so precious every time he encounters a child he's like "THEO THEO DID I TELL YOU I SAW A BABY TODAY IT SMILED AT ME" oh burr you are my life and my soul


	3. three/three

Half the newspaper is filled up with a single announcement. Burr reads it twice over, disbelieving -- and a third time in the evening paper, eating supper. The details are scanty and preposterous and probably untrue.  _Philip Hamilton, 19, injured in duel -- likely to die -- Mr Eacker responsible -- an affair of honor._

An affair, he thinks, and honor. How often these words are combined. Do any of them really understand the meaning?

So. He tries to write a letter of condolence and fails. How can he express his sympathy -- and to whom would he address it? Hamilton is the obvious one, but they haven't been on good terms for some time; he might take it ill; he might think Burr means something between the lines. (The last time they spoke on anything personal was after the disaster of the Reynolds pamphlet; Burr alluded to it, meaning to tease, but Alex fumed. "It was a question of _honor_ ," he'd said, "not that I expect _you_ to understand things like that --" And Burr was so angry he couldn't see straight; he bowed crisply and left, slamming shut the door.)

But. Eliza. What is  _she_  going through? Because it's clear enough to Burr that this was Alexander's goddamn fault. They're his dueling pistols, for one thing. And whatever rudeness this Eacker said was probably about Alex, too; god knows he gave the world enough ammunition. And now it's killed his son.  _Are you satisfied?_ he wants to write. _Are you finally through ruining the lives of everyone around you?_

He wants to write so much -- too much -- all of it is disastrous, most of it rude -- so he doesn't write anything at all.

 

He goes to bed at a decent hour, gets up to piss after his first sleep, and finds himself unable or unwilling to return to bed. He puts on a wrapper and tucks his feet under him in a chair and spends a while turning the pages of a book, not reading anything, not even thinking of anything really. _Philip._

The clock strikes once and then comes a knock -- barely audible, but real enough. Burr gets up to answer it (the servants are asleep and anyway he already knows who it is) -- except it's not Alex after all.

For a half-second he thinks the figure in the black hooded cloak is his wife, Theodosia, brought to him like a banshee to foretell some great horror -- and then his mind clears and he pulls her inside and they're staring at each other. "Elizabeth."

"I don't mean to disturb you."

"You're not."

"You are not -- you're not prepared for company."

He resists the urge to remind her of the hour. Instead he settles her in a chair ( _his_ chair). Finds her a blanket. Pours out whiskey.

Eliza downs the liquid and chokes, coughing.

"Woman, you're meant to sip it!"

"I don't care. I don't _care_. I've been so -- for so _long_ \-- with Alexander, too -- and then tonight he tried to come to me, he tried, he _dared_ to try -- I couldn't bear it." She bursts into tears, she covers her face, and the hood slips down off her loose hair and falls around her neck.

 

What can he do.

 

They are slow, this time. He is careful with her; he pretends she is made of glass, or paper, or spun from sugar in some elegant French delicacy. She actually cries out loud once and he stops and "please don't," she tells him, "please ignore me" -- so Burr understands his role in this is to provide relief, thoughtlessness. To hurt her, in a way. To hurt _Alexander --_ even if Alex doesn't know it, even if he will not feel it. He understands that well enough. Better than he wants to, really. So he is patient and kind when he can be kind, and when she begs him to _hit her bite her scratch her mark her please_   _please_ he bites down on a place the usual situation of nighttime and blankets and sheets will hide, and he covers her mouth so the house will not hear her and wake.

She thrashes underneath him and then goes still.

He touches her throat, her hair, her mouth. "Elizabeth?"

She curls up on her side, away from him. Does not speak.

So. So he covers her with the cloak again and pokes up the fire and settles nearby, rubbing her back and shoulders, watching the fire spurt and throb until the clock strikes four, until she _must_  rise and go home or risk exposure from the servants who will be waking to work very soon.

She sits up, gathers herself, goes to leave.

He cannot say to her  _Any time Alex destroys your life and happiness, I am here._ And she does not want to speak at all.

 

He goes to see her the next week, a formal condolence call with his daughter in tow. She is still young, still shy and cautious in company, too much like Burr himself, and he aches for the troubles awaiting her. 

He  bends over Eliza's hand as they're leaving. "Let me know if there is anything I can do," he says, with an arched eyebrow.  She nods. Swallows. Looks down. 

_Tonight_ , then.

 

He's almost given up and gone to sleep when she arrives.  "I didn't think you'd be here --" Kissing her mouth, her neck, the sweet place behind her ear. His hand finds a tender spot, beautiful and soft and warm.

She gasps. "I shouldn't have come." 

"You haven't, yet. Should I stop? Are you displeased?"

"I want you in me." Her eyes are shut, her head against the wallpaper, legs shaking and bare to the waist; even in moonlight he can see the pink rising on her cheeks. It's flattering. Or: it ought to have been.

"Good lord, woman." But he's smiling. He strokes a little more before obeying.

She bites his shoulder. "Aaron!"

"Burr." Only his wife called him  _Aaron_. "Stop wiggling, would you?"

"But -- you can't mean -- like this? Against the wall? It can't be proper! I'm not a, an -- um --"

"You can say it in French, if that will relieve your mind. Lizzy, look at me. Tell me you want this. Wall or not, I don't care, we can move to the floor -- just tell me -- I don't have any interest in hurting you." He steadies his temper, reminding himself that he's lived through worse than _coitus_ _interruptus,_ trying to believe it past the ache that tells him to go on, go on. _Eliza._

Eliza stutters. "Is that how p-prostitutes, is that how they do it? Against walls?" She means: _what did_ _Hamilton do with that Reynolds woman_ ; she means, _what did my son do_.

Burr would rather talk about almost anything else. But. "Walls, yes. Doorways. Trees, sometimes." Also bent over gravestones, and in rented rooms, and on one memorably painful occasion, on the roof of a moving carriage. (He doesn't say all that.)  "And I think there's no _improper_ way to do this, unless one of the parties doesn't enjoy it."

Unless it's with another man's wife.

"Lizzy?"

"Go on."

 

Burr sends that letter after all.

 _I deeply regret the circumstances leading to such an event, the loss of such a youth, cherished both in who he was and in the hope of his future. Yet when it is necessary to conduct oneself in such a way as to leave a memory, rather than a momentary impression, personal and familial honor requires attention such as Philip was able to give. Let this give you comfort: that he at least had nothing of which to feel shame. May we all live so blamelessly._ _May God bless and keep you, etc._ _I remain, etc._

He feels certain that he has tried to please both Eliza and Alexander, and in the usual way of these things will no doubt end by insulting each.

 

 

She does not come to see him.

She does not come to see him.

 

He finds himself visiting one particular prostitute with appalling frequency, especially considering how tedious she is in bed -- but her body is right, her breath comes in the right pattern. He shuts his eyes and groans at the moment; he says a name.

The whore studies the ceiling.

Burr counts out coins, apologizes for nothing, thanks her for nothing. It didn't help. The physical isn't the problem; the physical has never been the problem. The problem is, it's the only outlet he has. The problem is that he needs one at at all.

 

He goes out to the garden and finds a pigeon-feather tucked away beneath a smooth rock. It's a note, a message. _I am restless; I am awake_. He hefts the stone in his hand, imagines her standing her in the moonless dark, head bowed, leaving him this mute communication. Did she carry the feather all the way from their Wall Street home? Did she pick it up from the sidewalk -- or pull it from her pillow, maybe, like Ophelia gone mad through contact with Hamlet's madness, bits of hay and straw clinging to her person ...

He needs to stop thinking of this. He needs to stop thinking like this. The last time he was this  _distracted_ was when he'd met his Theodosia, knowing she was married, courting her anyway. Sending letters in code. Staying up all night in a soldier's tent, thinking of her, not touching himself until he couldn't bear it anymore. But Theodosia was clever, talkative, bold -- she was the inverse of Eliza Hamilton. _Do we seek our opposites?_ he asks Eliza, silently. _Did you marry Alexander because he is so unlike yourself?_

\-- or because he stood nearby and bowed and smiled at you and took your hand and said  _If it takes fighting a war for us to meet ..._

 

Burr spends enough time and effort on forgetting Eliza and finally, finally succeeds.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- pigeon-feathers for restlessness is a reference to Wuthering Heights -- poor Cathy swears her pillow was stuffed with them, and that's why she can't sleep, and oh ..  
> \- also i really love pigeons; they are beautiful and pure  
> \- there's a _Les Miserables_ quote in there too; I affection tragedy, rebellion, and sin  
>  \- the pistols really belonged to Alexander's brother-in-law; Alex held on to them because HE WAS CONSTANTLY DUELING i guess  
> \- "first sleep" isn't really a thing we have anymore, since the advent of electric lights, but it was (is) a real thing! you sleep heavily four or five hours, wake up and have a nice space of calm time, and go back to sleep for another couple of hours.  
> \- i looked up synonyms for "swallow" for an unrelated fic and


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Alex. Have you spoken to Burr lately?"  
> "Who?"  
> "Aaron Burr." She tries to laugh. "You do remember him."  
> He grouses at her. "I'm not that old, Betsy, that I've forgotten old friends. Nor enemies."  
> "You ought to invite him over," she says, courage failing.  
> He doesn't reply.

1780.

Eliza believes in the long slow things. She marries Alexander for better or worse, brimming with hope like champagne bubbling over the glass, and when Alex kisses her the first time she shuts her eyes and crosses her fingers for _better._

He makes her cry on their wedding night (she bites her fist and "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" he says, not stopping) -- and afterwards he covers her up and kisses her sloppily and leaves in a haze of embarrassment, worse even than her own, and she cries again into her pillow.

 _You are not the first person to marry a man thinking you can change him,_ writes Angelica, who has been married for years. But Eliza didn't expect to change him. She knew who she married. She recognized that look in Angelica's eyes at the party and she stepped forward to claim him anyway. She knew the rumors; she knew he married her for her money; she didn't care. She would trust in her own luck -- and in Alexander's.

 

1787.

Alexander works in law; Alexander works in politics, using her name and his relationships to claw upwards. Eliza doesn't much care. She names their children after the people she loves, a dizzying round of self-reference, a wall to protect her from uncertainty.

 

1792.

Alex invites over a friend -- Burr. He's brilliant, funny, dark-eyed and beautiful; he smiles politely.

Eliza is not impressed. She barely remembers Burr exists from one visit to another until Alex says, _sotto voce_ , "Be kind to him -- Theodosia is ill." 

"Who?"

"She's dying," he says.

 

Her hands shake when she hands out the tea.

Burr doesn't notice. Burr is looking at his wife.

 

1797. 

Alex cheats. She's known it for years, ignored it studiously. It's possible to ignore things so perfectly that you forget you are ignoring them. It doesn't matter (she tells herself, furiously knitting); he comes home to _me_ , he married  _me_ , he loves _me._ When he finally admits to adultery -- the story tumbling out in a mix of apology and justification -- Eliza knots her hands in her lap and looks anywhere but at his face. "Forgive me," he pleads. "Betsy, I'm sorry."

He gropes for her at night and she hits him across the face.

 

The next day she sits in the parlor, accepts visitor's calls like nothing is changed, like her humiliation isn't scattered through the streets and read by a thousand eyes. She pours tea. Adds sugar. Stirs. The spoon clinks; she sets it down in the saucer. She's thinking _we called on Burr after Theodosia died, of course we did, and he_  --

He laughed. Alex went rambling on and Burr laughed, "like nothing at all was strange," Alexander had complained, walking home; but Eliza thought it was closer to madness. She feels that way herself, as if one stray word would cut her ties and set her out flapping in the wind.

 

1798.

Forgiveness is like the movement of glaciers; it leaves a canyon when it goes.

She finds herself thinking of Aaron Burr. There was a light in him that went out when Theodosia died.

"Did you ever betray your wife," she wants to ask him. Instead, she searches for the answer in the lines around his eyes, the patience and grief framing his mouth: those were not there when they met.

He doesn't speak. He doesn't need to speak. ("Burr never _commits_ ," Alexander complains that night, in their bedroom; Eliza thinks privately that maybe Alex does not listen. It wouldn't be the first time.)

She listens to the noise of him undressing in the dark.

He presses a kiss to the back of her neck.

She might accept his presence in the bed but she will _not_ accept this. So she pretends to sleep and he pretends to believe her.

 

In the dark, she thinks about Aaron Burr. He's handsome enough, and she's always enjoyed a pretty face, but it's more than that. He's the mirror of Alex -- looks, intelligence, wit -- but they use everything so differently. (Would they use _everything_ differently? she thinks, and blushes, even though no one can see.)

It would barely even be cheating, she argues with herself, adjusting her petticoats in her skirts as the sun blooms over the city. Or, alright, it's cheating, but frame it differently. Call it an eye for an eye. A heart, she thinks, for a heart -- because hers is gone, turned into a million pages and littered in the streets with that goddamn Pamphlet -- and Burr is so fragile, so lost. Like how he never speaks of his wife, barely mentions her as having existed. Do two broken pieces make a whole?

She collects feathers in the street and fills her pockets. She collects knowledge and differences. (Aaron takes a single sugar in his tea if it is offered and does not bother otherwise; Alex will take two and steal a third if she turns her back, like a child.)

She still bleeds every month, crossing her fingers for this now. They haven't been together since -- _since_ \-- but she still worries.

She finds herself visiting the Burrs. Tells herself: _I only want to see him smile again. I only want to make him smile._ _I only want --_ To feel his mouth, his hands, his pressure. It's so unfair that Alex can do what he likes and she is trapped at home, stuck with him, a doll for him to move around the house.

She doesn't want to be slow anymore. And Burr (who never takes a risk, who never commits) -- his breath catches when she smiles at him.

 

1799.

Eliza uncrosses her fingers; she reaches out. She takes.

 

1800.

\-- remorse eats at her like worms; she cuts it off. Burr (of course) says nothing, neither in gratitude nor reproach. She tries to feel more grateful than betrayed.

 

1801.

Philip is killed and her world breaks apart. How can she go around every day in so much pain? How can the tides pull in and out, and the ships dock and unload, when he is dead? The plot in Trinity grows green and that makes it worse, it's proof that time passed, every day is a longer time since the last time she held him.

Her daughter seems to have lost her mind, she is somewhere where Phil is still alive, and Eliza thinks: _I want to be there too._ Anything to be away from here.

Burr is a knife. He cuts her open and (bless the man) she can finally go free.

 

Eliza is pregnant. It's utterly unbelievable, except -- not quite. She counts back the days on her fingers once, twice, a third time -- but the third time takes her running to the privy to bring back up her breakfast and then there is no mistake.

She catches herself herself crying and swearing openly, and has to pretend it's a slow reaction to the loss of Philip. (Isn't it?) She hasn't been careful. They have not been careful. Alex calls Burr _stupidly cautious_ but he wasn't, not with her. Not careful enough. -- And Alex is not stupid, far from it, he knows full well how long he's been denied. He's the secretary of the Treasury; he can _count_. He might not suspect the right person (would he?) but he will know something is wrong --

So what choice does she have but to kiss him and let him move again between her legs, that soft spot where she swore to him _he'd never touch again,_ screaming with whispers in his office, daring him to so much as _attempt_  an apology: _I hate you I hate you I hate you_  she'd said and he stood there and took it, barely flinching, but he looked liked he was breaking apart and she was glad she was so glad and so  _angry._

Sleeping again with Alex brings its own wave of decisions and changes; she doesn't want to see Aaron again now, she can't face him with the feeling that she's cheating on him. (Ridiculous emotion! but there it is.)

Burr accepts this as wordlessly as he accepts everything.

But at night she finds herself wrapped in a cloak, walking the streets alone, looking and feeling like a whore. She leaves him signs. Rocks, feathers, lines scratched into the dirt around his house. It's immaterial if he can read them, really, it doesn't matter at all -- but she thinks that he can.

 

They name the baby Philip. His eyes are beautiful and dark and at once he opens his mouth eagerly for her breast.

 

\-- and life settles into a pattern like dust settling into the corners of a disused room, and Eliza puts away the thought of Aaron, ignores things that remind her of his laughter, corrects herself when she wants to ask Alexander a question, when she wants to say _Give this book to Burr, would you?_   _He would like it_ or to say _How is young Theo?_ or, god help her, _Why don't you ask over the Burrs_

because she doesn't want to see him in company and she _certainly_ doesn't want to see him alone, and she absolutely will not show him their new baby in case he sees something of himself there, in case he wants to take him home. It's irrational -- Burr is not like that! but the fear eats at her. What more can she lose?

 

Then he's elected Vice-President, and she's been keeping well out of politics, but even her willful ignorance cannot hide the shouting in the streets and the triumph in Alexander's voice.

 

  
1804

Eliza dreams.

She dreams Alex is breathing slow and steady beside her; he sleeps so deeply these days; he is a man approaching peace; he doesn't have anything to hide, he says, just to see her smile at him. Still she rises with the clock chiming three and goes to his office and sorts through the papers -- a scathing indictment of Jefferson _(then why did you elect him)_ , notes for his work on the treasury, various editorials to be published under various names -- it's nothing much.

The false bottom of his favorite drawer is usually empty, now. She checks it anyway. A familiar habit. ( _Can't you trust me?_  he whined, and she said nothing.)

 _Dear Sir --_  
_I have cause to believe that you spoke some words against my reputation ..._

There's a threat implicit in Burr's steady words, a raised eyebrow that sinks down into her stomach. -- And did Alex reply? Of course he did, and here is Burr's second letter, rather longer and rather more tense --

 

Her hands shake, she's pulling on a bonnet and running down the street, pounding on his door until a bleary-eyed footman opens it and brushing past him to the bedroom (she oughtn't even know where this is but _fuck_ propriety, _fuck_ this standoffishness) --

Burr is sitting up in bed, the single sheet falling away from his body; he's rubbing his face. Despite the hour it's very warm here; his windows are open to the gardens below and no breeze comes to cool them. "Eliza? I mean, Mrs Hamilton?"

"Don't shoot him."

"-- what?"

"Don't shoot my husband," she says. 

Her face is pale and her eyes are huge and he swings out of bed to draw shut the door.  He draws her forward by the wrist.  "What are you talking about?"

"I read your letters."

Burr clears his throat. "That's nothing to worry over."

"You're dueling."

"How many times has Hamilton been shot at? He lived through a war and -- what, ten duels, is it, on top of that? Plus yellow fever, malaria, enough alcohol to drown an army. He's got more lives than a herd of cats ... Lizzy. You can't really be worried over this."

"You can't really want to shoot him over something he said at a party _five years ago._ "

"I am not so petty," he snaps, and clears his throat. "Not at all. I know he talks when he's drunk -- we all do. It's his inability to own it, nor retract it. If he were a gentleman, if he had the honor I thought he had ... the honor he used to have." He runs his hands through his hair again, looking ashamed and grieved and angry, too. Not with her. "If he would apologize."

"That isn't Alex's way; you know that. But I'm sure he feels it."

"He could be a trace more forthcoming."

"So could you," she snaps. 

The candlestick trembles in her hand and she sets it on a table and  Burr considers her, bonnet to slippers, and it's as though for the first time he realizes his own state of undress. "Why are you here?"

"To -- because -- your letters --"

"Really? And you were prepared to entreat me, only? You come to my bedroom at -- god knows what hour of the night it is --"

"It's past two."

"Dog's watch. You rouse my house and wake me in my nightclothes, simply to _ask_ me not to shoot your selfish, lying, cheating, --"

_ "Don't you talk about him like that." _

"He's reckless," he says, soft. "And he is intemperate. I might do the world a service by shooting him, Lizzy. I might even get a medal."

Eliza scoffs, but she's beginning to relax a little now because he knows how to tease her down, even now, even now ... "The President would never."

"It's an interesting question, isn't? Who does Jefferson hate more: his vice-president or his secretary? Well." Burr is close to her now, and he smiles. "Maybe it'll remain academic."

She clears her throat. "So if we go to bed, you will delope."

"Another academic question," he tells her, and to her own disbelief she laughs out loud, muffling it with a hand that he draws away and kisses, lightly, on the palm.

Burr says: "Do you miss it? Going to bed with me -- as you so nicely phrase it?"

"Alexander keeps me busy enough."

"Oh, you are a wicked woman, aren't you! I'd forgotten that." But he's smiling and oh, he is _beautiful,_ a nd she'd forgotten the sound of his voice, how it drops low with interest and curls dark in her stomach.

"Burr," she says, uncertain of everything. "You wouldn't really go forth with it?"

"You came here to prostitute yourself and now you're asking to withdraw? You're as bad as he is."

"I'm serious. Please back down. Please. _You_ must do it. You _know_ Alex wouldn't, he can't, it isn't in him and I don't know why, but you -- Aaron, you're _better_ than this. Please," she says again.

He says: "I am not at fault -- but I will back down, this time. I promise you that much."

She kisses him, more from relief than from desire. "Bless you."

"If he really wants to get himself shot, Lizzy, there are people waiting in line after me. Will you beg all of them on your knees?"

"If I need to." 

 

Of course it doesn't really happen that way.  This is how it happens: 

Eliza wakes up and Alexander is gone and the bed is cold and the light is low and she drifts back asleep 

Eliza wakes up and day is spread out new and fragile across the sky and they are bringing her husband up the steps, calling to her to be brave, calling for a priest.

They bury him in Trinity churchyard. Near their friends. Near their son. The sun is so bright it burns her eyes; the July heat presses down like a filthy rag, and t here is no wind at all.

 

Later on, she finds the letters. Later on she tears open her pillow and and stands by the open window with her hands full of wing, letting her hands fall open, letting the feathers fall out to the street. Pigeon, she thinks. Duck, dove, rooster, all mixed.

Later (much later) she thinks: _Aaron Burr used to make me laugh._

 

She drinks tea with her sister; they watch together as snow settles into the corners and angles of the city, softening its edges. "Do you hate him?" Angelica says. ( _That wretch Burr_ , Angelica once wrote. _That monster._  How far away those days seem, so long-ago and so small.)

Eliza adds a lump of sugar to her tea, and then another, and a third; she stirs it with a filigree spoon, not letting the silver clink against the walls of the delicate cup.

Angelica nods like that's answer enough.

Later, when it's long enough that Angelica will think the conversation has moved on to Hamilton, Eliza will say  _I find myself missing all the wrong things._

She will say: _He used to make me laugh._

For now, though ... for now, she says only: "The snow is drifting deep; you won't be able to walk home safely. But look at it; isn't it lovely? This morning New York was filthy, all grey and grime, and now it looks like something from a fairy-story. Clouds of powdered sugar."

"Dangerous," says Angelica, "if you can't see what's below your feet."

"But beautiful."

Angelica clears her throat. "Philip's piano is improving rapidly. He must practice often."

"He's very clever."

"And fine-looking, too. He'll turn all the girl's heads in a few years, with those dark eyes."

"He takes after his father."

Angelica stares. "Alexander's eyes were golden."

"You're right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Angelica really did say "That WRETCH Burr" in a letter she wrote when Hamilton was dying  
> \- i played a teeny bit with the timeline here but LMM did way worse, so there
> 
> *
> 
> i am an inveterate sinner  
> and some of it happens on tumblr  
> @littledeconstruction


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